These, in contrast with the Samurai, had no formal general organization,
they worked for a common end, because their minds and the suggestion of
their circumstances pointed them to a common end. Nothing was enforced
upon them in the way of observance or discipline. They were not
shepherded and trained together, they came together. It was assumed that
if they wanted strongly they would see to it that they lived in the
manner most conducive to their end just as in all this book I am taking
it for granted that to believe truly is to want to do right. It was not
even required of them that they should sedulously propagate their
constructive idea.
Apart from the illumination of my ideas by these experiments and
proposals, my Samurai idea has also had a quite unmerited amount of
subtle and able criticism from people who found it at once interesting
and antipathetic. My friends Vernon Lee and G.K. Chesterton, for
example, have criticized it, and I think very justly, on the ground that
the invincible tortuousness of human pride and class-feeling would
inevitably vitiate its working.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186